Plans for the future

Our trust strategy

Healthcare never stands still so it is critical that we look to the future to improve, innovate and develop our services to meet the needs of the patients and population we serve. Our strategy to achieve this is in two parts: our clinical services strategy which sets out the services we will provide and the four transformational themes which describe how we deliver them.

To define what we need to do in order to deliver on our mission and achieve our vision, we have set ourselves 18 strategic objectives across the four transformational themes and the clinical services strategy. Measurement of our progress against the objectives ensures that we are balancing delivery today against development for tomorrow, internal and external issues, quality and finance.

Clinical services strategy

Our clinical services strategy is to be the specialised cancer, cardiovascular, trauma, children’s and neurosciences provider for the North of North Yorkshire and the South of the North East, and to provide integrated healthcare for our local communities of Hambleton and Richmondshire, and Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland. Four strategic objectives define our clinical services strategy:

To be the major provider of specialised services in the South of the North East and northern North Yorkshire

To be the predominant provider of integrated secondary and community services in Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, Hambleton and Richmondshire

To realise significant quality and efficiency improvements through the integration and transformation of secondary and community services

To realise significant quality and efficiency improvements through major service innovation every year

Transformational themes

The transformational themes describe the way in which we work as an organisation to deliver, develop and improve our services. The four themes are:

1. Quality and patient safety

Quality and patient safety is our top priority and is supported by the other three themes. Our aim is to always deliver high quality, safe and continuously improving services and we have set ourselves five strategic objectives:

To continuously reduce our mortality rate and to be in the best quartile for mortality in the North of England (world-class outcomes)

To deliver care free from avoidable harm for all patients (dependable patient safety)

To deliver an outstanding experience for all patients (patient focussed experience)

To deliver care free from process errors (operational excellence)

2. Organisational capability

To deliver high quality care we must be a dynamic, capable organisation. Organisational capability is about investing in the leadership, engagement, teamwork and capability, particularly for service improvement, of our staff.

3. Business sustainability

To continue to deliver the best possible care for our patients we must be financially secure and operate efficiently to allow investment in improving quality. Business sustainability therefore focuses on our ability to generate and use financial and information resources.

4. Partnerships and engagement

We recognise that the trust will never be successful in isolation and that our external relationships will be a major factor in our success. We are part of a larger health and social care system which must work together to the benefit of patients and we make a significant contribution to the local economy through contracts with local businesses and as a major employer. Partnerships and engagement focuses on developing and maintaining the external relationships which are critical to our success.